Category Archives: Google

Google earned $10m from ads misdirecting abortion seekers to ‘pregnancy crisis centers’

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Study finds the search giant has profited since Roe was overturned from anti-abortion groups buying misleading search terms

Google has made millions of dollars in the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.

The tech giant has taken in an estimated $10m in two years from anti-choice organizations that pay to advertise such centers alongside legitimate results on the Google search page, according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit group that conducts misinformation research. Its study, published on Thursday, estimates that the search results have reached and potentially misled hundreds of thousands of users.

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EU regulator orders Google to sell part of ad-tech business

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Competition commission accuses firm of favouring its own services to detriment of rivals

The EU has ordered Google to sell part of its advertising business, as the bloc’s competition regulator steps up its enforcement of big tech’s monopolies.

The competition commission said it had taken issue “with Google favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers”.

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Google and Facebook urged by EU to label AI-generated content

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Call comes amid moves to combat disinformation from Russia, while Twitter is warned to comply with new digital content laws

Social media companies including Google and Facebook have been urged by the EU to “immediately” start labelling content and images generated by artificial intelligence as part of a package of moves to combat fake news and disinformation from Russia.

At the same time, the EU has warned Twitter that it faces “swift” sanctions if it does not comply with new digital content laws that come into effect across the bloc on 25 August.

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Meta threatens to pull news content in California if law to pay publishers passes

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Proposed bill would require ‘online platforms’ to pay a fee to state news providers whose work appears on their services

Meta is threatening to remove news content from its platforms in its home state of California if the state government moves forward with legislation that would force tech companies to pay publishers.

The proposed bill would require “online platforms” like Google and Meta to pay a “journalism usage fee” to California news providers whose work appears on their services.

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Brazil receives pushback from tech companies on ‘fake news’ bill

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Brazilian government has accused Alphabet of interference after it placed advertising on its search homepage and YouTube

Brazil’s government is taking a stand against major tech companies over a new internet regulation that is shaping up to be one of the world’s strongest legislations on social media.

Bill 2630, also known as the ‘fake news’ law, puts the onus on the internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, instead of leaving it to the courts, charging hefty fines for failures to do so.

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Major tech firms face hefty fines under new digital consumer bill

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Global companies like Google, Apple and Amazon could have to pay penalties of up to 10% of their global turnover as government gives competition watchdog more power

Major tech firms face the threat of multibillion-pound fines for breaching consumer protection rules under new legislation that will tackle issues including fake online reviews and subscriptions that are difficult to cancel.

The digital markets, competition and consumers bill will empower the UK’s competition watchdog to tackle the “excessive dominance” that a small number of tech firms hold over consumers and businesses.

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RT videos spreading Ukraine disinformation on YouTube despite ban – report

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The platform banned the Russia-controlled publication last year for its Ukraine falsehoods, but its content is still posted on various channels

Hundreds of videos produced by the Russia-controlled publication RT have found their way on to YouTube in the past year, despite the platform’s ban of such media last year.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, banned all Russian state-funded media from its platform globally in March 2022, citing a policy barring content that “denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events” as Russia sought to guide the narrative on its war in Ukraine.

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Ruto ally says Telegram account was hacked before Kenyan election

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Strategist says he noticed ‘increased activity’, after revelations about activities of a disinformation unit

A senior strategist with close links to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has publicly acknowledged that his Telegram account was infiltrated in the lead-up to last year’s election.

Dennis Itumbi told the Star newspaper that he had noticed “increased activity” on his Telegram last year but called it “inconsequential”.

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Google parent firm Alphabet to cut 12,000 jobs worldwide

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It is latest US tech company to announce sweeping job losses as global outlook weakens

Google’s parent company is to cut 12,000 jobs worldwide as it becomes the latest US tech major to cut staff.

Alphabet’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said the redundancies followed a “rigorous review” of the business. The cuts come days after Microsoft said it would cut 10,00 jobs, citing a post-pandemic shift in digital spending habits and weakness in the global economy.

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Hong Kong pressures Google to remove protest anthem from searches

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Authorities want Glory to Hong Kong axed from top results and replaced with China’s national anthem

Google has refused to change its search results to display China’s national anthem, rather than a protest song, when users search for Hong Kong’s national anthem, the city’s security chief has said, expressing “great regret” at the decision.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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‘When will the rain stop?’: Australia’s most searched words on Google in 2022

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Australians also searched for ‘floods’ and ‘La Niña’ more than any other country in the world

Australians searched for “floods”, “La Niña” and “when will the rain stop?” more than any other country in the world in 2022, according to Google.

As a year of floods and wet weather hit large parts of the eastern seaboard, Google recorded more searches for “mould” in Australia than ever before.

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Twitter and TikTok could be called to negotiate under Australia’s news media code

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Review of Google and Meta agreements suggests ACCC look at what other social media platforms should be brought to table with publishers

Social media sites like TikTok and Twitter could be assessed for whether they should pay news companies for content, under recommendations from the Treasury’s review of the news media bargaining code.

In its first year of operation, the code was a success, facilitating 23 agreements between Google and news publishers, and 13 agreements between Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and news publishers, according to a Treasury report released on Thursday.

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Google will pay $392m to 40 states in largest ever US privacy settlement

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Case is a historic win for consumers after an investigation found the tech company tracked users’ location even after they opted out

Google has agreed to a $391.5m settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users’ locations, state attorneys general announced on Monday.

The states’ investigation was sparked by a 2018 Associated Press story, which found that Google continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called “location history”.

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Australia’s consumer watchdog calls for new laws to stop scams and rein in anti-competitive behaviour online

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ACCC report says digital platforms expose users and businesses to ‘harms’ as it pushes for overhaul

Australia’s competition regulator has run out of patience with digital platforms such as Google and Facebook and has recommended new laws to clamp down on scams, address consumer complaints and rein in anti-competitive behaviour.

Releasing its fifth progress report on digital platforms since it began an inquiry in 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for industry-specific legislation, saying it has identified “widespread, entrenched and systematic” consumer and competition “harms”.

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Texas sues Google for allegedly using people’s faces and voices without consent

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Google collected biometric data ‘from innumerable Texans’ and used faces and voices to serve commercial ends, complaint says

Texas is suing tech giant Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

In its complaint, Texas says that companies operating in the state have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent.

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Federal election advertising blackout period should be changed or abolished, inquiry hears

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As number of prepoll votes rise, rule has become redundant and may also encourage misinformation, TV broadcasters and social media groups say

Groups representing TV broadcasters and social media companies have called to change or abolish the advertising “blackout period” before federal elections, claiming the measure is outdated and could even allow for harmful political misinformation to flourish.

Free TV Australia, the peak body for commercial free-to-air-broadcasters, told a parliamentary inquiry into the May election on Tuesday that the blackout period, which prevents radio and TV stations from broadcasting election ads from the Wednesday night before the election, was outdated.

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French tax officials use AI to spot 20,000 undeclared pools

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Scheme to be extended across the country after trial in nine departments led to extra €10m in tax receipts

French tax authorities using AI software have found thousands of undeclared private swimming pools, landing the owners with bills totalling about €10m.

The system, developed by Google and Capgemini, can identify pools on aerial images and cross-checks them with land registry databases. Launched as an experiment a year ago in nine French departments, it has uncovered 20,356 pools, the tax office said on Monday, and will be extended across the country.

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Saudi snitching app appears to have been used against jailed Leeds student

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‘Terrifying tool’ under scrutiny as Salma al-Shehab’s tweets suggest widely available phone app was used to report her

The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet appears to have been denounced to Saudi authorities through a crime-reporting app that users in the kingdom can download to Apple and Android phones.

A review of Leeds PhD student Salma al-Shehab’s tweets and interactions shows she was messaged by a person using a Saudi account on 15 November, 2020 after she posted a mildly critical tweet in response to a Saudi government post about a new public transportation contract.

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Google earnings signal company weathering slowdown better than expected

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Parent company Alphabet reports second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than a year ago

Alphabet only narrowly missed estimates for its quarterly revenue on Tuesday, a sign the tech giant may weather an industry-wide slowdown better than expected.

Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than same period a year ago and nearly in line with the average expectation of $69.88bn among investment researchers tracked by Refinitiv.

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Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient

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Company said Blake Lemoine violated Google policies and that his claims were ‘wholly unfounded’

Google has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.

Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) to be “wholly unfounded”.

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